Posts tagged ‘materialism’

We sometimes hear people saying that love is just chemistry. Apparently Zach Weinersmith, the SMBC cartoonist, doesn’t agree. He gives his ironic reaction in one of his cartoons. I agree with the cartoonist, though I would not react in the suggested way.

In an earlier post (almost three years ago), I asserted that I am not a materialist. I have had people argue with me about that, and suggest that I was being disingenuous.

In the debates between Rupert Sheldrake and Michael Shermer, Shedrake’s opening statement includes a bunch of questions related to materialism, that he poses to Shermer. So I thought I would give my answers to those questions. And then you can decide for yourself whether I should be considered a materialist.

Mechanism

Sheldrake’s first question: Is nature mechanical?

I have never thought so. I take biological organisms to be an important part of what we mean by “nature”, and biology has always seemed very different from mechanics. Rocks, earthquakes, etc — yes, I consider those to be mechanical. But not living things.

For myself, I disagree with much of what Nagel writes. But I find it interesting nonetheless. Readers of this blog will have noticed that I disagree with a lot of traditional philosophy. And Nagel particularly emphasizes some of those parts where I disagree. So, in a way, this highlights my disagreement. If I were to suggest an alternative title for Nagel’s book, it might be:

More properly, my title should probably be “Why I claim that I am not a materialist.” I say that, because I am often called a materialist, usually by creationists or id proponents whom I have engaged in debate. So I guess that I should allow the possibility that I am mistaken about whether I am a materialist.

While there are some differences between materialism, physicalism and naturalism, most of what I say in this post will apply to all.

For those who are not sure what materialism, physicalism and naturalism entail, may I suggest that you check the entries in Wikipedia, SEP (Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy) and other online sources. When you have finished reading those, you might still be unsure what these isms entail, but your time reading them won’t have been wasted.